Building More Accurate Shared Leadership Theory: The Double Threshold Effect of Shared Leadership on Multilevel Creativity

ABSTRACT

Although shared leadership is typically considered a beneficial leadership approach, findings reporting its effectiveness are mixed. By integrating implicit theory and the “Too-Much-of-a-Good-Thing” (TMGT) effect, this study hypothesizes that both too little and too much shared leadership restrict team creativity and employee creativity. We test such double threshold logic across three independent studies. Study 1 results reveal that shared leadership can promote team creativity, but only within a certain range. Results from Study 2 suggest that shared leadership is positively related to employee creativity, but again only within a certain range. Study 3 replicates the findings of Study 1 and Study 2, and reveals that shared leadership is unrelated to employee creativity when team collectivism is high. Together, these findings suggest that there is a double-threshold effect of shared leadership on employee creativity and team creativity, and that the double-threshold effect of shared leadership on employee creativity is moderated by team collectivism.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [71802134].